


phenomena

by tremontaine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Double Penetration, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, OT3, Pining, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:59:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10441458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tremontaine/pseuds/tremontaine
Summary: Go off the suppressants, Cho had said. It’s dangerous, she’d said. You need to clear your system, she’d said. The exhaustion, the headaches, the sleeplessness, the inability to keep rich foods down – they’re all symptoms. She’d said. Natasha was tempted to hate her for it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even _like_ a/b/o.

 

 

In her dreams, the conversation went like this:

“You want to what?” Bucky said, astonished.

“Now you promised not to laugh,” Natasha said solemnly, which had the unfortunate effect of making Steve laugh. Bucky shook his head; Natasha prodded Steve in the thigh with her right foot, and he caught her ankle and held her foot in his lap, rubbing his thumb over the skin in little circles.

“You want to come off the suppressants,” he said.

“For one heat.”

“Does this,” Bucky wondered of the ceiling, “have anything to do with the fact that the docs have been telling you you need to come off them once a year to be safe for an actual decade, according to your med file, and that –”

“Why are you reading my med file,” Natasha said, exasperated – not that she didn’t already know the answer: Bucky had read everybody’s files, he was as paranoid as she was.

“You’ve kept up the suppressants continuously for a decade,” Steve said flatly.

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not sure you’ve got moral high ground to look down on me from, buddy. At SHIELD –”

“You ever heard of do as I say, not as I do?” He grinned at her suddenly – apologetic and mischievous at once, so that she laughed at him instead of being angry, as she might have done with someone else.

There would never be anyone else. The tattoos on her wrists were irrefutable. The lovely thrill she got from seeing their tattoos every day had had a lot to do with her decision about the suppressants.

“Why now?” Bucky said. He’d come over and perched on the coffee table opposite her armchair; at her right, Steve was on the end of the couch, eyes bright. Bucky kept his face steady.

Natasha slid her foot out of Steve’s grasp and straightened up. She leaned over and touched Bucky’s face, smiling; transferred that smile to Steve.

“When else?” she said. “You’re here and we’re bonded and I’ve never been more safe.”

 

In real life, it went like this:

“Oh, Steve – not this weekend. I need a few days.”

“Hmmph,” said Steve, attacking the roster again. “OK. You can be back on the twenty-fourth?”

“Shining morning face,” Natasha promised, smiling at the top of his ruffled head, the strong broad shoulders.

He glanced up at her, and the laugh-lines around his eyes deepened. “You’ll let me know if you need anything?”

“I will,” Natasha promised.

“You’re not lying to me right now?”

“I never,” Natasha promised again. Then she leaned over the table and kissed his cheek; she couldn’t stop herself. The touch of his skin burned her mouth, the smell of his aftershave and his body in her nostrils. “See you soon.”

“Bye.” Steve smiled at her, so bright it made her dizzy with joy to see it, and went back to the team roster, and Natasha left, her heart pounding in her chest, longing for his hands on her body, fantasising about sliding into his lap and smoothing his tousled hair and kissing that lovely mouth.

Go off the suppressants, Cho had said. It’s dangerous, she’d said. You need to clear your system, she’d said. The exhaustion, the headaches, the sleeplessness, the inability to keep rich foods down – they’re all symptoms. She’d said. Natasha was tempted to hate her for it.

It was going to be brutal. Already Natasha had been weaning herself off them for three weeks, and while it was true that she had fewer headaches and could eat better already, the sleeplessness had not improved. This was because she’d swapped insomniac nights of alternating restlessness and depression for endless amounts of sex dreams and masturbation that brought her less and less relief each time. She had been struggling to hide how short-tempered she had grown, how off-balance... Clint had tried to talk to her about it and she had snapped at him angrily, shrugging it off afterwards as tiredness and probably the flu, but she wasn’t sure he’d been fooled. It was climbing, getting worse; once the last of the drug was out of her system all the pent-up heat cycles she’d been suppressing since she escaped the red rooms would have their revenge.

Natasha pictured something red and sticky exploding in her face when she thought about it.

Bucky was in the elevator, the fluorescent light making him seem pale, his eyes very bright. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone; he’d slid his right hand underneath it to rub at his left shoulder, flash of metal and chest hair and strong, sculpted muscle. Natasha kept her face neutral and her smile faint. Her palms were clammy. There had been an elevator once in… Tallinn, perhaps, where he’d pressed her against the wall and kissed her till she was dizzy and panting… the memory faded out there; she didn’t know what they’d done afterwards, where they’d escaped to to have their way with each other.

“Romanov,” he greeted her, friendly but uncaring. “You on this weekend?”

“Something’s come up, actually.”

“Lucky you,” he said cheerfully, and then pitched his voice a little louder: “Steve’s been a pain in the ass about this job all week –”

“Go screw yourself, Barnes!” Steve bellowed. “You’d probably cheer for the Yankees if you thought it’d get you out of this, you’re a disgrace.”

Bucky looked affronted. “I have _never_ ,” he said to Natasha, “in a hundred years – count ‘em, a century – I have been brainwashed and tortured and killed heads of state and brought down governments and shot my best friend in the stomach but I have _never_ rooted for the motherfucking _Yankees_.”

In spite of herself, Natasha smiled. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

“Pfft,” Bucky said. Then he glanced at her again, much more sharply; despite recognising the tactic intimately, she still jumped. He had the grace not to smile, or point out her slip. “Call if you need anything, Romanov, OK?”

Natasha opened her mouth to say thank you, and the breath caught in her throat; something had a hold of her heart, squeezing, twisting. The red rooms put you on the suppressants at age eleven. They took you off them ten years later, at twenty-one, for one heat. You were supposed to be locked in your cell to suffer the effects in silence, and disdain heat as a biological function as necessary and as distasteful as defecating.

By the time Natasha had been taken off the suppressants, she had spent the last eight months of her life fucking the Winter Soldier every chance she got. Neither of them had known a damn thing really about their own biology, or alpha-omega bonds. Both of them had only known the other loved them. Natasha’s heat had been hell itself, made a thousand times worse by the growing bond. She had wanted her bonded mate and no one else, needed his touch, his body, his cock inside her. If the bond had been settled it might have been less intense, but her body had known what – who – she was missing, and pushed her to find him.

Natasha remembered nothing of those days, and little of the weeks that had followed. All she could be sure of was that he’d killed a dozen men trying to reach her, that she’d killed five of her handlers and another Widow trying to get out of the cell to reach him, and that they had both been made to suffer for it.

Well, and that the bond was broken, with time and loss of memory. She was sure of that, too.

“Romanov?” Bucky said, reaching for her.

Natasha jerked back from him as if his touch would burn her. _I need you I want you come with me stay with me love me remember me_.

“There’s nothing,” she said harshly. “Thanks, though.”

“OK,” he said, stepping back. “OK.” The pale eyes never left her. She would not shake. She would not shake. She would not put her hand out to close the doors and let him see her shake.

After an age, the doors slid shut.

+++

The thing was – they had never said so, but everybody had cottoned on to this by now but Stark – the thing was, Bucky and Steve were bonded. Alpha-alpha bonds weren’t uncommon, though Natasha had no idea how they had managed to settle theirs, after everything that had happened. But they had: the tattoos proved it, black against their forearms. She had only caught a glimpse once. Steve had given up on short-sleeved shirts in public, presumably to hide his mark, and Bucky had never worn them anyway, because of his left arm, so right now their bond was probably the best-kept secret in the country, what with the state of things… But it was there. Their scent had changed – subtly, but picking up on those changes was what Natasha was trained for – and after all, she remembered that scent on Bucky. They looked at each other more, and touched in passing where others would not have; they each always seemed to know exactly what the other was doing or feeling at any given moment.

In short, bonded. When she had first realised that Natasha had felt… numb. That was all. Well, it made sense. Of course it did. And really, what had she been thinking? The red rooms had left her twisted halfway between alpha and omega, not rid of her biology but raised not to give any value to it; that useless half-in half-out type of attitude wasn’t what anyone wanted in a bonded omega, even before you looked at the blood on her hands. Natasha herself couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head most days – how to ask someone else to put up with it, to touch her mind all day, every day, irrevocably until death?

How to give herself to someone so utterly, irrevocably; how to offer herself up, body and soul, and trust that – Most people, when they talked of trust issues, were afraid of being hurt. Natasha was afraid of being controlled. _How about a friend_. The memory of Steve’s tight little smile in the car when she had mocked him cut her now like a knife-blade. It had taken her a long time to fumble her way into enough peace and self-possession that she had been able to picture going to anyone (Steve) the way she’d gone to her Soldier – freely, willingly, eagerly, without thinking to panic or to fear him, gladly handing herself over to him even in a time when biology would make her utterly vulnerable, trust him to give her back to herself, made whole. But then Bucky had come back, and Steve had thrown everything away for him, and – well, there had been more important things going on than Natasha’s messed-up feelings anyway.

And now it was too late.

+++

The safehouse was in New Jersey, and she’d been careful in recent months to be vocally disdainful of the place. No one would look for her here. She had left her cell phone in her apartment, hired a car under a false name in Hoboken. Cho had the number of the apartment’s landline; that was all. There were no registered alphas or omegas in the building. No one would find her. The place was stocked with everything she needed, the bed big and comfortable, the supply of towels and linen endless. Natasha showered, dressed in underwear and pyjamas, and flung herself into the bed.

Here, alone in an empty bed in an empty apartment with no way to reach anyone who – cared about her… Already her body was warm with arousal; already she could feel the ache and pulse of her cunt as she began to swell open and grow wet.

Humiliating. Just – humiliating. Her body was a weapon and a tool, carefully honed, carefully maintained, and her control over it was absolute. On this her life, the lives of the people who fought with her, and the lives of the people she protected, depended utterly. And here she was sprawled across a brand new mattress soaking her underwear over literally, actually nothing: no fantasy had crossed her mind, no channel had been changed on the TV to accidental porn, no surprisingly sexy line read in a book. Just: lie down, and get turned on, and prepare for it to get even worse, because the red rooms with all their messed-up mind-altering technology had been able to cut away Natasha’s ability to bear a child but not the fundamental fuck-up of her biology that made her body want to conceive one anyway, and which would force Natasha to enjoy the process will she nil she.

Humiliating.

The fact was, she had not put off heat for so long because she was afraid of the pain she remembered in that cell. She had put it off so long because she knew that it would tear out her detachment at the roots and force her to live completely in a body she could neither control nor retreat from, the way she could retreat, mentally, from pain or illness. The idea made her afraid, and it made her angry that here, at the most crucial, intimate juncture, all her skills both intellectual and physical were at last utterly, utterly useless.

“Well,” she said to the ceiling, already feeling an urge to put her hand between her legs and stroke herself. “Nothing to do now but wait it out.”

She clenched her fists by her sides angrily and tried not to snarl. Or sob, come to that.

+++

They’d fucked last night like it was their last one on earth, half in a frenzy, pushing each other in a way they hadn’t done in months, not since their bond had settled: with an edge of desperation, a sense that nothing was enough, that they were straining together for something out of reach. Once, above Steve, sliding inside him, Bucky had called him _Natalia_. Steve had ached for her, missed her; he kept putting his hands out, searching for her soft strong body in the bed she’d never even seen, let alone lain in.

He missed her right now, her sly humour, her calm and her level-headedness in dealing with whatever situation. Of course, if she were here, there wouldn’t be a situation to deal with. Bucky was pacing, restless, unable to settle, half-hard again, uncharacteristically aggressive, which made Steve anxious (though you couldn’t have made him admit to the word if the fate of the galaxy depended on it. He might have managed an understated ‘worried’.). Bucky detested violence, these days. He had always had a tight grip on his temper when he chose; three younger sisters and then promotion during the war, responsibility for his men, had given him a habit of control that Steve knew he would never match. And that had been before Hydra; these days, nothing could rile Bucky but Steve himself, and Steve was fairly sure that was something Bucky let himself have, a deliberate decision.

In short, seeing him so snappish and so angry, vibrating with tension, was a bad sign. A very bad sign. True it _was_ kind of sexy, the way he was prowling around graceful and furious, but that was a distant afterthought to the situation. Steve was keeping still, perched on the arm of the couch, only by virtue of the fact that he’d banged his knee against the bedframe last night and it was sore. Natasha’s absence wasn’t making him tense; it made him ache, regretful, longing, yearning. 

“She’s not answering,” he said quietly.

“It’s her,” Bucky said for the hundredth time. “It has to be her. She’s off the suppressants, she’s alone somewhere trying to ride it out.” He stopped at last, looking at Steve. “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

“Not always,” Steve said, his voice still low. “It comes and goes. Last night – and she kissed my cheek before she left and it felt like you, like how you touching me feels.” It had burned him, he meant, bowled him over with the rightness of it. He had been dreaming of her so often, these last few weeks, that it had been all he could do not to jump up and run after her and catch her in his arms, kiss her till she moaned for him and sighed and admitted she was his, she’d always been his… Natasha had pulled at him right from the start: her strength, her smile, her intelligence, her bravery. Time and trust had deepened that pull, and if he’d just been less self-centred all those months… but he’d let her down so badly in Germany. The fact that she had never blamed him cut deeper than anything else. She had accepted his apology with a smile, and they had shaken hands on it, laughing together, and that had been that.

But she held back from him now. There was the old wall between them… at SHIELD she’d covered it over with sarcasm and jokes about his love life, needling, missions. Now she covered it over with superficial affection, quietness, understanding. But it was there. She took what he gave her and let him have nothing in return, not anymore: not even her anger. As if he wasn’t worth the effort…

Well, he deserved that.

“We have to find her,” Bucky said.

Steve looked up. “We can’t just – waltz into her place and go, hey, you need a hand with that? She’ll kill us. She’d have every right to.”

“Oh god,” said Bucky, “spare me your scruples, you self-righteous asshole. You didn’t dither like this over us.”

“That was different,” said Steve, struggling to keep a grip on his temper. “And your and her bond –”

“Well let’s go and ask someone,” Bucky snapped. “Who would she trust to treat her?”

There was only Helen. She was in her office going over lab results with two of her assistants; when Steve and Bucky walked in she looked up vaguely and waved them to chairs, but Steve said, “We need a word, alone,” and glared at the lab assistants till they took the hint and fled.

Helen said, “Feeling OK?”

Bucky said, “Natasha.”

Helen put the tablet she was holding down on her desk very carefully and spent several seconds adjusting it to align perfectly with the edge of the table top. Steve felt bad for her – she was not an expert in bonds, and they had no business, really, spreading their personal life all over her office like this.

But he also knew that somewhere the woman he loved was _hurting_ , and Steve didn’t much care who he had to go through to fix that.

Bucky looked at him. Steve met his eyes, curious; for a moment something tentative came through the bond, and then fierce satisfaction. Bonds weren’t telepathic per se, there was nothing so articulate as words in them, but Steve caught Bucky’s thoughts perfectly just the same. _She’s ours_.

Helen said, “Does the concept of doctor-patient confidentiality mean anything to you?”

They both glared at her. She went red, but she didn’t waver.

Bucky said, “We’re bonded.”

Helen snorted.

“I _don’t_ find it _amusing_.”

Steve leaned over and took a hold of his elbow.

“I’ve done Natasha’s scans,” Helen said. “There’s no bond. Her brain chemistry is… well, it shows no bond.”

“But it’s not normal, either.” Steve pounced on that hesitation the way he’d punch the enemy’s weak spot in a fight.

Helen groaned. “I really –”

Bucky was still glaring; when he spoke, it was between clenched teeth. “We’re _bonded_. Legally –”

“Show me the tattoos, then,” Helen snapped.

“Helen,” Steve said quietly, “she’s in pain.”

Helen blinked.

“She’s in more than pain,” Bucky said. He’d forced his voice to softness now, but he was shifting his weight from foot to foot, watching Helen closely. “She’s off the suppressants. Isn’t she? I can feel her, Helen. I can feel how much she hurts, how badly heat’s hitting her. How badly she needs us.”

“You can feel it,” Helen said flatly. Then she rubbed her hand over her face. “All right. Into the lab. If your scans show a three-way bond with an omega…”

“They will,” Bucky said confidently.

And they did.

“It’s half-formed,” Helen said. “Your hormone levels aren’t quite right. But it’s there.” She tapped a command into the screen and pulled up another scan – squinting at it, Steve saw Natasha’s name in the lower right hand corner. “But it isn’t showing on Natasha’s. See? The hormone levels are totally different.”

“How’s that possible?” said Steve. “There’s no such thing as a one-sided bond.”

“No,” Helen agreed. “It’s entirely dependent on interaction – mutuality.” She sighed. “The only thing I can think is that it’s the suppressants.”

“They’re supposed to suppress heat, not bonds.”

“Bucky, they’ve been in use for less than forty years, and very few people are reckless enough to use them continuously for a straight decade. Bluntly, Natasha’s scans worry me. That’s why I told her to come off the suppressants. I’m not an expert, and she won’t let me send these scans to one, even anonymised. I don’t know how far this is the omega brain chemistry equivalent of someone with – with an addiction or a mental illness, for example. But the fact is, it’s not the brain scan of a healthy omega woman. And those suppressants, the length of time she’s been taking them, are the only explanation I have for it.”

“So she’s alone, she’s hurting, she doesn’t realise we’re bonded, and by the time the suppressants are completely out of her system she’ll be in agony because we’re not there, and won’t understand why her heat’s so bad,” Steve said harshly.

Helen didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

“She _is_ alone?” Steve added, sudden terror swamping him. Then it flared up into fury: if another alpha put their hands on what was his he would _kill_ them, so help him. He had a very satisfying vision of himself punching some faceless person’s head until their skull shattered, and then, stomach roiling, clenched his fist until his nails bit into his skin. That wasn’t – no. That wasn’t who Nat deserved. Or Bucky. 

“Yes,” said Helen at once, seeing clearly where his thoughts were headed. Bucky made a low, growling sort of noise. “Friends of mine could have recommended… a business that could help with that; Natasha turned me down, she said she’d ride it out alone.”

“How the _hell_ is that supposed to work?”

Helen bit her lip. “Painfully,” she admitted after a long moment. “Unbonded omegas – which we both thought she was when we discussed this – well, it’s awkward and it hurts but twelve hours and you’re done. Bonded omegas whose mate isn’t there find that their heats are much more intense. And if your bond hasn’t even settled yet –”

That was not exactly reassuring. Steve clenched his fists tighter still and set his jaw.

“Where has she gone?” Bucky demanded.

+++

The first few hours had been OK. Natasha had slept through most of the night, though when she woke up her dreams lingered – Bucky and Steve, together, all – all over each other. She forced those thoughts down, shying away from flashes of their hands on each other, the way they kissed, the noises Steve made as Bucky sank inside him, the arch of Bucky’s back when he rode Steve – no. No no no. Worst thing she could think about, either of them, in any form, with her or without.

No. There must be something else, anything else. The ache between her legs was climbing; she’d stripped herself long ago, her slick wet on her thighs, the smell of it musky in her nose. She couldn’t keep still, though there was nothing to roll her hips against, nothing to grind on the way she’d straddled Bucky’s thigh and ground on him, laughing, his big hands on her hips, his face rapt as he looked up at her –

Nonono. That was, that had been a long time ago. A long long time. There was nothing left for her in those memories. Nothing.

+++

The drive was interminable. Bucky drove because he couldn’t not, tapping restlessly at the steering wheel, jiggling his leg. Next to him Steve was keeping still by an effort of will so fierce Bucky could feel the strain of it through the bond. There was no use trying to pretend he wasn’t aroused. The closer they got to Natasha the harder he got – the harder Steve got, too. Distantly he thought that he could pull over and put his mouth on Steve and take the edge off, but the idea was – not distasteful, never that, but Bucky still didn’t actually _want_ to do it.

He knew why. Natasha’s heat held all their attention. She needed them, and biology had them both focussing on her and her alone. Did she remember him, their time together, their love? She must do. How else had the bond formed? The truth was, Bucky suspected now, it had never been broken. From the moment he had seen her again after Germany, after Wakanda, more in his right mind than he had been in decades, he’d wanted take her in his arms and promise her he would never hurt her again… The memory of how he’d tried to talk to her about it was a pain in his chest. He had gone to her, and she had been impersonally friendly, a thick glass wall beneath her words: no footholds to climb over with, no cracks to speak through. She had _joked_ about Odessa. He had felt sick. Furious at himself, he had not tried again.

Maybe that had been a mistake. He hadn’t wanted to – to force himself on her, he supposed, to bring up something painful that she had either put behind her or been made to forget. He knew how much it hurt when those walls inside your mind fell apart… But Natasha was not one to run and hide from what she feared: she confronted it and made it her own.

Usually. It all came back to those fucking suppressants – messing with her head, altering her emotions, keeping her from seeing what was going on under her nose. God, he hoped she hadn’t been hurting too badly.

“It’s not very comfortable,” Steve said, jerking him out of his thoughts.

“Not wanting me?” Bucky grinned.

Steve flashed him a tight smile. “Idiot. But – well, yeah. Not wanting you.”

“I know.”

Steve grimaced. “I get now why she’s afraid of it. This thing that changes how you think on the most fundamental level, without your say-so… I’m sorry.”

Bucky grimaced back. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. She’s ours and this is how our bodies work.” He so hated it that Hydra had taken even that from him, his ability to say that and mean it… he clenched his hands on the steering wheel briefly. This _was_ how it worked. It was fucking messed up to think instinct and mind-control were one and the same; there was no one on the other end of this, yanking his strings. Only his own body.

Only his bonded mates.

It would be all right. Natasha wasn’t much farther away. You could have stopped the car and blindfolded him and spun him in circles and he would have been able to crawl to her from here; she was under his skin, in his mind, and he yearned for her.

This time, this heat, everything would be different – for both of them. For one thing, Steve. For another, Bucky was going to hold her down in the pillows and spread her legs and fuck her till she cried, till she was begging for his knot and promising never to do anything like this again. A vision swam up of his hands holding Natasha’s wrists down, bruising her, marking her; of her thighs parted wide and streaked with his come, her sweet helpless little noises and the way her voice would break when she said _I promise I promise I love you_.

That was part of it too, the aggression, the anger, the need to make her _his_ … Bucky shuddered.

“Thinking of her?” Steve said lowly.

“Yeah,” Bucky croaked.

“Me too. Smell her again, see what she looks like naked… feel her round my cock, see her face as she takes my knot –” He broke off, a wave of red crashing over his face.

Bucky laughed hoarsely. “Fucking beautiful is what she looks like naked. God, Steve, she’s so graceful, I’m never over it. If I had half her self-control – fuck, if I had half her _goodness_.” He shook himself. “The prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.”

Steve sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Yeah?”

“Teach you how to eat her out,” Bucky promised. “Remember exactly how she likes it, how she wriggles about and makes this noise in her throat… like a purr.”

“I want everything with her,” Steve said. He closed his eyes. “I want to do everything _to_ her.”

“Soon,” Bucky promised. “Soon.”

+++

God it hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt, her whole body ached with it, she couldn’t bear to stand still, to lie on the bed, to shower or move around, every inch of her skin yearned for touch, every movement she made made her wetter, her own fingers between her legs did nothing for her, nothing, she was sobbing into the pillows and had been for hours, breathless, unable to concentrate.

Natasha couldn’t keep them out of her mind any more. Fantasising about attractive celebrities had brought her to two or three unsatisfying orgasms, but the longer this went on the more their faces became Bucky’s, Steve’s. She wanted to lie under those broad shoulders, feel that metal hand on her breasts, see the way Steve would kneel before her and part her legs, wanted Bucky’s possessive little growl in her ear, wanted to be marked up, hurt, punished like a recalcitrant pet for daring to think she had ever not belonged to them. Have them inside her, have them fuck her, use all her holes, keep her naked and wet and ready to be fucked, knot her and keep her like that for hours, days, oh god, both of them at once, trapped between them, every twitch of her body moving their cocks inside her, body heat and skin on skin, wet and hot and filthy and inescapable, and then, and then, the black tattoos on her forearms, the bond in her mind sweet and heavy, the casual touches, the kisses in passing, the peace of it, the safety, the knowledge she was loved –

On and on and on, her mind turning circles around this thing she would never have, could never have. Why had she not gone to them? You didn’t need a bond to help an omega through their heat, there was nothing shameful about it, not to normal people who accepted this thing she’d been taught to dismiss and repress as an ordinary if awkward part of some people’s lives, what was her pride worth when it brought her to this, she could have had them, even just for a few days, she could have had them with her now, helping her, soothing her, pretending –

She couldn’t bear a lie. Even like this, maybe especially like this, she couldn’t bear a lie.

+++

Middle of the afternoon; the building was quiet. They didn’t need to know her apartment number. The smell of her heat was cloying, dragging at them, and now Steve could feel her in his mind too, the way Bucky had been feeling her for so long, a hot little knot of misery that made him ache. He’d never been so turned on in his life. He’d never been so close to Bucky while turned on without wanting to kiss him, suck him off, spread his legs and take Bucky inside him – Steve shuddered – not for want, but because he _didn’t_ want, and the wrongness of that cut him like a knife.

Natasha. Natasha was important here. Soon. Minutes away, minutes, and he could take her in his arms and kiss her and fuck her as she needed him to, as he wanted to, knot her and hold her safe, promise her everything –

Bucky was sweating, breathing quick. Steve had never been so clumsy; he staggered as they left the elevator, half-running down the hall. Bucky fumbled with the locks, his hands were shaking, Steve could hardly see straight for naked lust. Natasha’s scent was so strong he could taste it in his mouth. He needed, he _needed_. The reckless messed-up little idiot, taking the suppressants, running away like she had a fucking right to do this to herself. Steve was going to take her apart for this, fuck her stupid, knot her and wrap his hand around her soft throat and make her come until she begged him to stop.  He pictured the slender strong wrists lashed to a headboard, and the noises she would make draped over his lap, her perfect ass spanked red; how she’d wriggle about and soak his thighs with her slick.

The lock snapped, but damn her, she’d put security chains on the door, bolts; Bucky shoved at it, snarling, and then leaned back and kicked it, once, twice. It sprang open, the wood tearing with a very satisfying sound. No alarms or codes. Of course not, she wouldn’t be able to remember them herself during her heat.

“Door,” Steve rasped. They lost precious minutes shoving a sideboard and the couch against it. Natasha was _crying_ , they could hear it through the whole apartment, the bedroom door open, the lights in the bathroom on as if she’d stumbled back to bed without noticing –

She was curled on the bed in a foetal position, naked, her knees drawn up to her chest, her skin gleaming wet with her slick, fine tremors running through her every few seconds, hiccoughing with sobs. Every now and then her hand would drift down to her ass and then jerk up again, as if she was trying not to touch herself. Her beautiful hair was matted with sweat, tangled across the damp pillows.

Steve couldn’t make himself move. Bucky was frozen still beside him. Never, ever had either of them seen an omega like this, and the fact that it was Natasha tore Steve apart. At last a shudder harder than the others racked her; she gasped and twisted, clasping her knees harder, trying to keep still, as if that would help, and hoarse and broken she groaned.

“Please, please make it stop, _please_ –”

Christ, he’d seen her beaten, even tortured, and never heard her beg like that. Bucky was across the room in the space of a heartbeat, and Steve flung himself after, and when he put his hands on her naked skin the world went up in roaring flames: nothing existed any more but this bed, but her.

+++

The dreams were the worst part, the hallucinations that swamped her, the way her fantasies seemed to gain weight and heft the longer she was like this, till several times she’d put out a hand to touch them and had them dissolve under her fingertips. Natasha couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t hear anything but her own heartbeat, her own sobs; she couldn’t –

Hands on her, catching hold of her, turning her over; the skin contact was so beautiful and so warm and so wanted that some distant, sneering part of her said, disgusted, you’d spread your legs and beg for it right now if it was Karpov himself. She flinched away from that voice, rubbing her wet face, pulling back as best she could with her body so uncoordinated – even fear was distant, unimportant, she couldn’t convince herself of the need to reach for the gun on the bedside table –

There was no need for the gun on the bedside table.

“Natasha,” said Steve. “Natasha, sweetheart –”

“My love,” Bucky said, and then, “You perfect little idiot, why didn’t you come to us,” and he bent and kissed her.

Natasha gasped into his mouth; involuntarily her hands came up, and she was gripping his clothes, dragging at them, sobbing again as he kissed her, but for relief now. Rustle of cloth and something hitting the floor; the mattress dipped as Steve climbed on her other side, and oh god above his naked skin against hers was bliss, beauty, his mouth hot and wet and demanding on hers. Bucky was stripping as they kissed, Steve’s big hands moving her just so – here and then lie back and her leg over his hip, his hard cock between her thighs.

“Please,” Natasha said dizzily, “please please please,” and he pushed inside her.

Orgasm rattled through her at once, her body clenching on his cock, her voice hoarse with crying, he hissed and snarled and toppled her onto her back, leaning up and rolling his hips, thrusting easily into her body, gliding out, shoving back in. Natasha couldn’t move except to hang on to him as he fucked her through the mattress, she was moaning at every thrust, eyes squeezed closed, jerking against him as his pace quickened.

“Kneel up,” a voice said harshly, somewhere very close; Steve pushed away from her, sitting back on his heels, pulling half her body into his lap, his hands on her hips tight and possessive.

“That’s it. Come here, love. You’re a stubborn brat, and I _wish_ I didn’t have so much of a type.” Steve was laughing harshly. Hot fingers on her face, pushing inside her mouth. She sucked at them eagerly, fucked onto them by Steve’s every thrust, moaned when Bucky pulled them back, moaned again when his cock brushed her lips; she licked at the head, and then opened her mouth and took him in. Breathing hard, shaking head to foot; there wasn’t much room here for tenderness, she needed it too badly, they fucked her back and forth between them, shared her, used her, fingers on her clit pulling orgasm after orgasm out of her so she bucked and twisted and both of them slid deeper inside her, her throat contracting around Bucky’s hot thick cock, Steve in her cunt fucking her so good, so _good_.

Steve came first, with a low cry and a jerk of his hips. Impossible not to moan at the feeling of it, the pulse of him inside her and the heat of his come, and the vibrations in her throat set Bucky off, his hand in her hair holding her head still; she choked and swallowed even as Steve’s clever fingers made her come _again_ , licking Bucky’s come off her lips when he’d pulled out, and lay there gasping, stunned in the aftermath of an orgasm that had finally, finally brought some small measure of relief to her aching, tortured body.

For a few seconds the room was silent, save their panting. Steve was still inside her and he was still hard and oh it felt so good. Bucky, kneeling by her shoulders, wasn’t going soft either. Natasha’s mind was – not clear, not by a long shot, arousal still burned through her, she was shaking with it, but she was coherent enough now to say, “You don’t need to –”

Bucky caught her chin in his hand, forcing her face up to look at him; Steve made that lovely snarling noise again and pinned her hands to the mattress. Natasha shuddered. Trapped, immobile, helpless, impaled on Steve, she stared up into pale grey eyes that had never looked at her like this before, never.

“You get this through your pretty head,” Bucky said softly. “You’re _mine_. You’ve _always_ been mine. When this is over first thing we’re doing is marching you down to the courthouse to get those tattoos done, and then you’re never touching those fucking suppressants again because Steve and I want you like this once a month every month for the rest of our motherfucking _lives_.”

Natasha was shaking. She pushed at his hand, turning her head to look at Steve, wide-eyed – Steve who laughed at her, stroking her abdomen lazily, her thighs.

“Don’t even think it,” he said. “You’re never getting out of this, Romanov. You hear me? Never.” His lip curled. “Oughta tie you down and spank your pretty ass red for running away from us.”

She was going to cry again. “We’re not bonded.”

Steve gave her a smile so supremely self-satisfied that she wanted to slug him. “Oh but we are. And maybe if you weren’t on those suppressants you mighta noticed.”

She snorted. “Like you did?”

“Hey. Of the three of us, you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

Bucky laughed out loud; Natasha squirmed and shoved at him. “Oh no. You’re not saddling me with that role.”

“OK,” Steve said, and his eyes narrowed, predatory, calculating; Natasha’s breath caught. “You can be the one who’s chained naked to the bed and fucked stupid three times a day.”

“God, the sight you’d make tied up for us,” Bucky said.

“I’m not exactly capable of going anywhere now,” Natasha said unsteadily. Then, soft as a whisper: “Really? Bonded?”

Steve’s smile was like the sun coming up. Bucky’s hands touched her face again. When she turned her face to him his eyelashes were wet.

“You’ve always been ours,” he said.

She sighed out slowly, her eyes closing. Claimed, owned, wanted. Loved. Worse things happened at sea. She nearly laughed, a hysterical giggle. All that energy sunk into months of poetic lovelorn misery, and look at this: come off the suppressants, realise you’re bonded to both the men you love, what could be easier. Ridiculous. “I don’t know how this works, you know…”

“For a three-way bond,” Steve said, and cleared his throat.

Natasha looked up at Bucky. “He’s done the reading.”

“He reads up on everything before he does it,” Bucky said, grinning at her.

“Were you just going to come in here and screw a few times and see what worked?” Steve said tartly. “Three-way bond, we both need to knot you.”

Natasha shivered deliciously. “Did you draw straws in the car, who’s going first?”

“At once,” Steve said. “Probably more than once.”

“Oh.” All the breath had been punched out of her, she was wriggling against the mattress, pushing back onto Steve’s cock. “Oh, yes, god.”

“Be rough on you,” Bucky murmured, his face dark with lust.

“So’s heat. Oh god, please. Steve, fuck me, Steve, come on –”

Lazily he gripped her ass and lifted her a little and thrust, the wet obscene noise of him fucking her through the mess of her slick and his come very loud in her ears. It was making Bucky shake too.

“I thought of that more as an incentive,” he said lazily. “I wanna see you come apart like that, want to feel Steve through you, knot you so good you forget everyone else.”

“There’s been no one else,” Natasha said. She closed her eyes again, sighing, cupping her breasts in her hands as Steve bounced her; liquid heat was spreading through her body, the agony of unsatisfied heat slowly changing into something… not less needy, but still somehow more gentle. “Never. Not anyone.” She bit her lip looking up at Bucky, girlish and wide-eyed, watched it turn him on even more, even though he knew exactly what she was doing. “Just you. And now Steve.”

“Yeah?” he said softly. “ _Good_.”

“Sloppy seconds,” Steve murmured; when she narrowed her eyes at him he bent forwards, thrusting in so deep it almost hurt. “Gonna come like this for me again, sweetheart? Yeah you are. Come on my cock, and then what we’ll do is, we’ll roll you over, and Bucky can have you, and we’ll open up that pretty ass, get you ready. And then we’re going to knot you, and you’re going to lie there between us all sweet with it till you need it again, and everything you want, I promise you, I _promise_ you, you’ll get.”

Natasha believed him.

+++

Later on Natasha would remember the hours that followed in bits and pieces, some blurred with the desperation of heat, others as clear, perfect images, like photographs. All the earlier pain and fear would fade, unimportant in the face of the pure animal pleasure of heat, the filthy inescapable physicality. Her sweet, treasured, fading memories of Bucky had nothing on this. There had been desperation there too, sure, and adventurousness, but there was no room in this endless frenzy for the hesitation with which they had touched each other all those years ago, the careful exploring; she had never even seen Steve naked before, but he touched her now with easy, unthinking familiarity, biting his lip with concentration as he fucked her, the strong hands positioning her body just so. Natasha sprawled across the mattress and watched these lovely new expressions cross his face and let herself go soft and languid. So this was being fucked by Steve Rogers… the quick pace and the hot eyes on hers and the thick cock deep inside her, her breasts bouncing with his thrusts, his shoulder under her right leg, his hand tight on her left thigh at his waist. Relentless, almost vicious, he fucked her to another orgasm that left her limp and shaking; his hips jerking against her as he filled her again racked her with aftershocks that left her gasping when he pulled out and moved back for Bucky.

Distantly the sweet familiarity of that touch registered on her lust-drunk mind, the beloved, distinctive caress of his left hand, but here again no hesitation. Natasha was still shaking, catching her breath, when Bucky rolled her over, pressing her face-down into the pillows, pulling her ass up and pushing her knees apart.

The feeling of Steve’s come sliding out of her with her own slick and painting her thighs had her flinching away, shame at her own wantonness and lack of control colliding with her heat, but Bucky’s hands pinched her hips as he held her still.

“Quit squirming or I’ll spank you. That’s it. Good girl.” He gathered the mess on her thighs up on hot thick fingers and used it to slick her ass, stretching her roughly, rubbing soothing circles over the small of her back with his free hand.

Natasha had quit squirming because she couldn’t breathe for that threat. Her whole body was burning up; she was panting into the pillows, her mouth dry, unable to answer. Sprawled across the pillows beside her, Steve laughed too; his big hand smoothed through her hair.

“That a yes please?”

_Fuck you no_ , she thought, not at all sure it would be the truth, but what came out was, “Anything – everything,” high-pitched and breathless. “Oh god, Bucky, fuck me, come on.” It had been, what, two minutes since Steve had pulled out and she was so empty, so very empty, she needed him inside her, thick and hot, pounding into her body filling her up –

Yes, oh, fuck. Natasha clawed at the sheets, groaning; so good, yes, yes. His fingers were still in her ass, three now, rubbing at her, teasing her, maddening counterpoint to the deep hard thrusts in her cunt.

“There you are. Beautiful girl. So tight and so hot, and look at your pretty ass begging for my fingers, for Steve’s cock… did we do that, Tasha, you and me? Did you let me have you like this?”

“I would have,” Natasha said helplessly. “I would have, I would’ve given you everything, any way…”

“And now it’s mine,” Steve said lowly. “I like that.”

“I do,” Bucky said; his voice had deepened, catching. “I – fuck, Nat, you don’t know how good you feel. Christ.” She had no breath to answer; she could only claw at the pillows and sob as he fucked her, her whole body tight and tense as a twisted wire. They were often so similar, her bonded mates, but they fucked her differently. Steve had pounded her, quick and aggressive; Bucky’s deep thrusts were slower, more controlled. He was jolting her whole body, pushing her up the bed and then pulling her back down onto his cock, filling her up so good, Steve’s come was trickling down her inner thighs, she could feel it. And then he shifted his stance, or hers, and suddenly every hard thrust was nailing her sweet spot, and pleasure ran like fire through her body every time; Natasha wailed.

“Remember that,” Bucky said, but she didn’t know if he was telling Steve or asking her. “Waited so long for this, Natalia, thought I’d never have you again.”

“Ohhh.” She groaned softly; she couldn’t even move to meet him, it was too much, too hard, too overwhelming. “Missed you so much. Always needed this, always.”

“You feel the same,” he told her hoarsely. “You feel exactly as fucking good, so sweet for me, so beautiful.”

“Dream,” Natasha said, working moisture into her mouth. “Dream about you, about this, about your cock in me, about Steve –” Her groping, desperate hand met his, and the big hot fingers closed over hers.

“I’m here.”

“Hah.” She laughed breathlessly, dropping her forehead against her hand, moaned; Bucky was going faster now, there was that quick rhythm she recognised, the way he circled his hips sometimes when he was all the way in. Natasha clenched her cunt around him, and he bent over her, hand pressing into the mattress by her head, all his hot weight above her and his skin sliding against hers, his breath on her shoulder, his other hand in her hair.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah, god, you’re perfect. Fuck. Gonna come inside you, sweetheart, gonna fill you up, it’ll be both of us then, Steve and me, messing you up, making you _ours_.”

Something white-hot and desperate flashed up and filled her whole body; she was tense and straining towards her orgasm, and Bucky’s hand skimmed down her body and between her legs and found her clit at once, pressing down just right, rubbing at her. Natasha gripped Steve’s hand so tight she found the impressions of her nails in his skin there later. No one else, no one else ever, bonded, claimed, owned; something she had been carrying hard and heavy as a stone inside her chest for years was shattered, pressed into the mattress by Bucky’s weight she’d never felt so weightless herself; white light was creeping at the edges of her vision, and her voice was quiet but very clear and very sure.

“I’ve always been yours.”

The light swallowed her up, spasms shaking her, her cunt clenching around Bucky’s cock. Again, as with Steve, she felt it when he pulsed inside her, felt the heat of his come deep in her body. _Yes_ , she thought, _breed me, fill me up_ , as if she didn’t know it was impossible. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this.

Oh it was done now, she’d really torn it. Natasha almost laughed. Bucky was curled around her back, his cock inside her jerking with aftershocks as he rocked his hips against her, touched her clit again. His fingers tangled with Steve’s, and she cried out softly at the sensation that went jangling through her.

“You’re all right?” Steve’s voice, from somewhere very far away.

Answering him was a terrible effort. “Yes.” She gasped it into the pillows. And yet, no. “No. I don’t know.”

“Natalia…” Bucky leaned over her. “Love, you’re shaking.”

“Smug,” she said, trying to keep her eyes open.

“A little, yeah.” A kiss, soft and brief. “You’re OK.”

They swung back and forth between demanding and solicitous so easily it made her dizzy. Desire was still pounding in her blood; god, heat was such an _effort_ , she’d had no idea. She was shaking, helpless, disconnected from herself; she’d had them both now, deep inside her, breeding her, and she couldn’t believe that wasn’t enough, wasn’t anywhere near enough, that her body still ached like this, that she still wanted more so badly.

Every sign she’d get it. Steve was leaning over her, studying her body with hot, intent eyes, watching Bucky’s hands as he fondled her. Natasha squirmed under that avid gaze, rocking against Bucky.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” Steve said quietly. “You’re just…” He smiled. “This is more than I ever thought.”

“Oh,” Natasha whispered. “Oh, I –”

“Why do you keep talking.” Steve touched her lips, still smiling that sweet warm smile; then he lay down again next to her, kissed her gently, scooted down the bed, his big hands splaying across her ribs, and put his hot mouth on her breasts. Natasha arched into their hands as they fondled her, her eyes closed, her cunt throbbing. Wet warm heat and gentle scrape of teeth and that hot tug of desire climbing in her belly, big hands teasing her. Tense and straining, she gripped the sheets in her fists. Bucky urged her head back to kiss her again; Natasha moaned softly, sighing into that much-missed mouth, learning again the shape of his lips and the heat of him and the way his tongue felt inside her mouth, the sweetness of it, the joy. Steve, she thought, arching into that clever mouth on her breasts, I haven’t had this with Steve yet. Bucky’s hand was at her mons; Natasha tangled her fingers with his, and together they brushed her swollen clit, making her shudder again, and stroked her labia, the stretched rim of her hole where he was inside her. His hips twitched forwards, and she made an encouraging little noise, wanting.

Bucky broke their kiss at last. “Steve,” he said.

He raised his head, the air cold on her wet breast. “Busy here.” His eyes were gleaming with amusement, and something shivered through Natasha curiously; they could joke, they could laugh, they could tease, doing this…

Bucky held up his hand, still tangled with Natasha’s, to show Steve the mess on their fingers: his come, Steve’s, Natasha’s slick.

“God, you’re filthy.” And lazily Steve reached up to take hold of Bucky’s wrist and lick his and Natasha’s fingers clean, his eyes hot. The wet mouth on her skin, his tongue rubbing against her fingertips, Steve’s lips soft around her and Bucky’s fingers at once.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Natasha said blankly.

Bucky laughed. “Nearly,” he said cheerfully to Steve, who released their fingers and grinned.

“Yeah. Nat – d’you – is it easier?” Curious.

Easier? Natasha laughed at him, strained. “No,” she said, “no, I –” But it was, in some indefinable way. She was still coherent, after all. “I just want you so much.”

“Everything,” Bucky promised. “Everything.”

“Yes,” Natasha said again. “Please, oh, yes, please.” Would she yet get spanked? The idea was delicious. What else had she and Bucky never tried? Nothing she could picture was distasteful to her right now; as long as either or both of her bonded mates did it to her Natasha would drop to her knees and beg for more and enjoy every second of it. Deep, deep down inside of her some vestige of rationality was alarmed. The rest of her wanted to be fucked too badly to care.

“Never imagined you so wild for it.” Steve’s mouth soft on hers, his warm hand gentle on her skin. “You’re so beautiful like this, Nat.”

“I’m a mess like this,” she said. “Oh don’t stop, please, _please_.”

“Beautiful when you beg, too. Shhh. Didn’t I tell you you’ll get everything you need?”

“Come on,” Bucky murmured. “Open you up, let Steve have your pretty ass. OK? OK…” God, it was embarrassing how soothing that low voice was, the croon in it; he pulled out of her gently, and gently they arranged her face down on the mattress, her ass raised for them, her knees spread. They stretched her again, using her own slick, their come; Natasha wriggled back into their fingers, gasping and sighing, pushing up onto her hands and then moaning when Steve pushed her back down and spread her cheeks, rubbed his cock in the crack of her ass. When the head slid over her asshole she groaned.

“ _Steve_.”

“I know, I know.” Slowly slowly he pushed inside her, splitting her open; Natasha thought she might come again just from this, just from the heat of him in her ass. She was moaning, a low continuous noise she couldn’t keep back. “God you’re so tight, I can’t –” He shuddered, she could feel it, and Bucky made a rumbling little noise in his chest.

“Might be a moment before you’re loose enough to knot you, kitten.”

The very idea of waiting yet longer when they were here at last and hers provoked her out of floppy helplessness and straight into anger. Natasha pushed up and hissed at him as if she _were_ a cat. “I don’t _have_ a moment, I _need_ you, I need your knots, I’m so empty,” she shivered into silence when he slid two fingers into her mouth again.

“Easy, sweetheart. You can take a little more, can’t you? Of course you can. For us. We won’t hurt you, love.”

Dizzy, she whispered, “You’d never – I know you’d never. Oh god Steve _move_.”

“All right. All right.” He rocked against her easily, deeper and deeper, pulling out slow and pushing in hard; all the breath was shocked out of her in sharp short cries, and Bucky stroked her back and murmured nonsense encouragement and endearments in half a dozen languages that Natasha could barely hear over the sound of Steve fucking her, groaning himself, her body rubbing across the sheets with every thrust, her clit still swollen, aching to be touched. If there was any pain in this, in being fucked in the ass for the first time, heat had swallowed it and made it into pleasure… Steve fucked her till she was lax and shaking on the bed, her ass in the air and his hands bruising her hips; fucked her breathless, till all the noises she could make were hurt little gasps of pleasure; fucked her till she was dizzy with how badly she needed to come, and all the while Bucky sprawled beside her on the mattress and watched, stroking himself to the sight of them.

“Good girl,” he murmured at last. “Good, good girl.”

His fingers on her ass, between her cheeks; she heard Steve moan, and felt Bucky caress her just where she and Steve were joined. Then he sat up, no longer leaning on his other elbow, and reached beneath her to stroke her cunt. Natasha cried out, feeling those hot fingers pressing against her labia, the way her body opened for him hungrily, and Bucky laughed.

“Greedy little thing.”

Fuck. She hissed at him again, _I’m in heat you idiot_. Bucky pulled her head up and kissed her again, deep and hot, possessive, claiming.

“Greedy little omega,” he said, deliberately, and Natasha knew she couldn’t keep the lust off her face, not like this. Greedy, wanton, desperate little omega, needing to get fucked, begging for a knot in her ass, someone’s come filling her up. Humiliation was a heavy, burning sensation in her chest. “What’s to be ashamed of? Every single thing about you is perfect. Including how badly you want us in you.”

“When you put it like that,” she said harshly, groaning. Oh they were pleased with her, they liked her like this; pleasure shivered in her bones. She had pleased her bonded mates. “Oh god, Steve.”

“Shh. Let me –”

“I need you, I need you to knot me, please, it hurts –” She was wriggling back against him, tightening up around him, desperate.

“I said _not yet_ ,” said Steve harshly, and cracked his hand across her ass. The smack stung like hell, something inside her clenching up and then releasing in a hot, lovely rush of pleasure. Her cunt throbbed in time with it, she could feel her slick sliding down her thighs, pulsing out of her.

She realised she’d moaned, a low wanton noise like a plea for more.

There was a stunned silence, not least from Natasha herself – so stunned in fact that Steve forgot to move entirely, seated deep and still inside her body. Fingers trailed gently over her buttock; then he hit her again. The pain flared up hot and radiated outwards deliciously, and Natasha made a hurt little noise of sheer animal pleasure and found she was panting.

“Baby girl,” said Bucky, astonished. Then, lowly, “Is that heat, or do you want it?”

“I _want_ your _knots_ ,” Natasha rasped. The words tore out of her as she pushed back uselessly against Steve. “Jesus _Christ_ how hard can it be, are you going to play around all night or are you going to do _what you’re here for_ , what the hell else is the _point_ of you,” and sobbed at the third blow, yanking at the sheets and writhing. Oh how did that feel so good, _how_. The sudden pain was beautiful, the impact jolted her body; every time it felt like her whole body clenched around his cock, and he was shivering behind her, she could feel it, with the effort of keeping still.

“The more you talk, the longer it’ll be before you get it,” he said dangerously. Steve, she was discovering, had a tiny little edge of cruelty to him in bed when he chose. Maybe silence was the better part of discretion. Natasha could have cried. In fact she thought she was crying.

“First she runs away from it, and then we’re good for nothing else,” Bucky said. He knelt up beside her, leaning over her, and put his hand on her back, stroking gently, tracing her scars; his touch was unbearably soft. When he followed it with his mouth Natasha caught her breath, flexed her fingers. Steve was stroking her too, caressing her ass, moving inside her in fractions of inches, big fingers in the crease of her thighs now. She thought they were looking at each other; there was a funny sense – somewhere under the lust and the need and the ache of not being filled the way she needed it, something… hummed, inside her, in her mind, something warm and just out of reach… Why wasn’t Steve moving? Why wasn’t he _knotting_ her, he was inside her, it was perfect, all he had to do was come.

“OK,” Steve said at last, and pulled out.

“Oh god, no,” Natasha blurted, “no, come back, I need it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for what I said, please don’t leave, I’ll do anything, anything –” Why wasn’t he inside her, what had she done wrong, she was so empty, she wasn’t whole anymore, didn’t they want her –

“Ah, no, sweetheart, come here.” They had to pull her up to her knees between them, she was shaking all over, unsteady, her hands sliding on sweaty skin when she grabbed at them, upright like this her thighs were getting messier than ever, the mattress wet with slick and come already. Easily Bucky and Steve trapped her between them; Natasha dropped her head against Steve’s shoulder and shook.

“It’s all right,” Bucky murmured. “You didn’t do anything, sweet girl, just be good for us, just another sec –”

“It’s my fault,” Steve said, pulling her head back gently and kissing her hot face, her open mouth; how strange and how perfect to be kissed by Steve at last. Natasha was still shaking. “I didn’t know…”

“I keep telling you,” she whispered. “I need you inside me. _Please_.”

“OK. OK.” And quietly, to Bucky, “Now –?”

“Have to,” Bucky muttered back.

“Yes, yes, now,” Natasha said desperately. “Now, I want it, how can you make me wait so long?” Plaintive, and a little hurt.

“C’mere,” Bucky said; he tugged at her, sprawling on his back in the pillows, his hard wet cock curving up towards his belly and a flush on his chest. Steve had to help her straddle Bucky’s lap. They helped her sink down on him, their hands gripping her tight. Natasha pushed and moaned and sobbed for gladness to have him inside her again, and slowly her breathing steadied. Her ass felt – open, she supposed, relaxed; Steve was caressing her, smearing more slick and come into her hole, keeping her wet.

Bucky stroked her hair back, held her face in his hands; Natasha leaned forwards, smiling unsteadily. Looking down at him now Natasha realised that she hadn’t _looked_ at either of them since they got here… Typical, that. Spend months daydreaming about abs and shoulders and Adonis belts and big deft hands and chest hair and strong thighs you wanted to grind on, and once you got both your objects of increasingly filthy fantasy naked in real life, be too wound up by your own body to pay proper attention to them.

But, god, it couldn’t be anyone else. Bonded. Bonded. Heat didn’t care, if you were unbonded, who fucked you as long as you got fucked; Natasha had wanted no one else, even through the suppressants, right from the start. Her face lay against Bucky’s shoulder, her body tight against his hot chest, his hands huge splayed over her back. No one else would have touched her like this, held her like this. The sound of their voices, their elevated body temp, the strength in both of them, manhandling her like she weighed nothing. Bucky’s hard cock inside her was heaven. When she wriggled against him her body rubbed against his perfectly, setting sparks off down her spine, and he kissed her temple, smiling. Steve’s mouth was hot on her shoulders, trailing down her back, his hands on her hips gentle, warm.

“All right, love. You’re all right.”

Natasha flexed her hands against Bucky’s sides, groaning softly. “I just, I need, I need so much, you don’t know what it feels like when you’re not in me, it hurts, don’t you see?”

“ _See_?” Bucky said. “D’you think we haven’t both been feeling it for hours, how badly you’ve been hurting? And you still ran away. You need to promise never to do that again, kitten.”

Natasha would have been happy, in that moment, to make any promise imaginable as long as someone fucked her in return, but the softness in his voice bowled her over completely. Her bonded mate, asking her – asking her to trust him, in essence. “I won’t,” she whispered, “I won’t, I promise.”

“Yeah?” Steve leaned in close behind her, cupping her breasts in his hot palms and kissing her temple, the side of her face; one of Bucky’s hands was on her waist, the other stroking the nape of her neck. Natasha couldn’t make herself meet his eyes; thank god Steve was behind her.

“I promise,” she said again, soft as could be.

Bucky’s sudden smile was pure happiness. Steve kissed the shell of her ear, his breath hot.

“The thing is,” he said, “we’re both kind of in love with you.”

“Yeah?” Natasha said. Her face was wet. “Is that why we’re bonded?”

“Pretty much. What’s your excuse?” Bucky leaned up to kiss her.

Natasha sighed against his mouth. “Well you’re easy on the eyes, aren’t you?”

He was laughing, they all were. She thought they were looking at each other over her head; then Steve moved back from her a ways, urging her to bend forwards, tilt her ass out. Bucky put his hot hands on her. Natasha whined as he spread her for Steve, and oh god the lovely burn of him in her ass again, she was so sore and so hot and burning up all over and so wet and – and – Natasha’s nails were digging into Steve’s forearms, her eyes fixed on Bucky’s rapt face –

Heat didn’t make it easier, this slow stretching of her body; it just meant she didn’t care if it hurt. Her bonded mates did, though. Apparently a few harmless spanks were as far as it went. She almost laughed. The room filled up with the noise of them panting; their cocks inside her throbbed. Natasha was biting her lip so hard she thought she tasted blood.

“Move,” she whispered. “Move, move, please…”

“Steve,” Bucky grated.

“Yeah.” Slow, so slow, so gentle; Natasha felt her body dragging at him as he pulled out, groaned when he pushed back inside, fucking her onto Bucky’s cock. “Tasha –”

“I’m all right now,” she said deliriously. “You feel so good, so good.” For the first time in who knew how many hours the pounding ache all through her body was soothed; they were both in her and moving in her and it was almost, almost what she needed; almost as good as being knotted. Sighing she dropped against Bucky’s chest; he kissed her, laughing, and Steve wrapped her sweaty hair around his hand and tugged her head back gently to kiss her too, and Natasha writhed between them and shut her eyes and gloried in it, in the slow easy build of pleasure and tension, gentler and sweeter than any other time since they’d found her, in the dizzying certainty that this was where she belonged, always, always.

“Quick now,” Bucky said softly. “Knot you now and keep you close, and if you need it again –”

“Oh.” Natasha sighed; so lovely, this, Steve’s chest hair rubbing her back, Bucky’s skin wet with sweat under her hands, the smell of their bodies and her own overwhelming, the slow easy roll of their hips dragging their cocks in her beautifully gentle. “I’ll always need this.”

Steve’s breath caught; Bucky shook. Natasha’s turn to be in control of something; she laughed, moving again, rubbing herself against them. Faster now, harder; they were swelling inside her and oh god it ached, she was so full, so stretched. Her heart was pounding, the blood hot in her face. Her skin was tight, her hands shaking, sweat was dripping into her eyes. She leaned against Bucky’s chest and put one hand up to slide it into Steve’s short hair and pull him closer; as he kissed her neck Bucky’s hot eyes caught hers, and Natasha brushed a kiss over his parted lips, the tip of his nose.

“Knot me,” she whispered, “come on, knot me, come inside me, fill me up.”

“All right, all right.” Steve was laughing. “All that build-up…”

“Don’t you dare,” Natasha said indignantly, and then laughed herself. “Oh you feel so _good_.”

Bucky tipped his head back, long neck exposed; he was biting his mouth raw. “So do you.”

“So, so good, Nat.” Steve kissed her again, deep and filthy. “So tight and so hot and so soft inside, take me so easily.”

“Made for this,” Bucky said. “You realise that? Made for us.”

Natasha gasped. Tense again, she pressed her hands down on his chest, trying to push back against those lovely thrusts that were slowly getting deeper, faster, and Bucky said it again, supremely pleased with himself: “Made for us.”

“Meant for this, always. You, here, you perfect this, Natasha. You’re so good and so careful and so brave, and now, so help me” – hilarity filled Steve’s breathless voice – “now you’re going to let us be good to you.”

She swallowed hard. Bucky’s eyes were on her face; she closed hers, hiding again, shaking. Every sweet word, every promise, had sent heat jolting through her; she was dizzy with it, so full, so full, soon even more than this. The same white light as before was creeping round the edges of her vision, and all the sensation in her body was focussed on their cocks inside her, even though Steve was kissing her shoulders and Bucky’s big hands were fondling her breasts. “I’m glad,” she whispered, “I’m glad, so glad, needed you so much, hate it when we’re apart, oh god, harder, fuck me harder, fuck me full and knot me…”

Relentless. Panting, and the obscene wet noises of them fucking her loose, stretched body; Natasha let her head hang forwards and herself go limp, moaning for it as they moved her, edging higher and higher and higher; she was too hot and too desperate and too – too –

“Touch yourself, Nat,” Steve said by her ear. “I want to see you come, baby girl…”

Her hand shook so much she didn’t know how the hell she found her clit. Her fingers slid effortlessly through the mess they’d made of her, and the pleasure that shook her at the first touch made her cry out. It was too much, it was far too much, she would never, could never, her body was spasming around them already, milking them, her muscles fluttering, and Natasha pressed down again. White light swallowed up her vision; she thought she’d screamed. Deep inside her something was pulsing, hot, swelling and stretching her further still, nearly unbearable, she was twisting madly, sobbing, too much, she couldn’t take it, it wasn’t physically possible to be so full, so helplessly impaled, so –

Safe. The word floated up from somewhere in her lizard brain; as the light faded and her breathing slowed, Natasha realised she was lying on Bucky’s chest, his arms around her, Steve’s body pressed to her back awkwardly, and she was hot and aching and sore and filthy – not in the fun way, but straight-up covered in slick and spunk and sweat – and thirsty and god, she never, ever wanted to move. Bucky’s broad chest under hers, his chest hair scratching her nipples; Steve’s hand on her waist, gripping tight enough to bruise.

She heaved a sigh. They were panting, shaking with aftershocks; experimentally Natasha moved her hips, and oh god their knots inside her so deep, lovely and big and hot.

“How long?” she wondered. Her voice sounded wrecked.

“Maybe an hour,” Bucky said. His voice didn’t sound any better.

“That all?” Natasha laughed helplessly.

“What kind of frankly disturbing movies have you been watching,” Steve muttered.

“How’re you feeling?” Bucky said.

Natasha drew a thoughtful breath. “Honestly?”

“ _Yes_ ,” the guys said in chorus.  

“Like a Madonna song,” Natasha said, and started laughing for the sheer joy of it.

+++

Maybe an hour. Natasha was floating, swamped with peace and contentment and a quiet, sleepy gladness; she was so full and so stretched and so very happy. Distantly some part of her knew this should be uncomfortable, that her legs should ache with the position she was in and her skin crawl with how filthy she was, sweaty and hot and sticky with her slick, with their come, but heat still had a hold of her. When one of them shifted she moaned for the shiver that took her, the fading aftershocks, and any aches and pains were subsumed into that sweet, detached happiness. She was breathing very slowly, in, out, long deep breaths, smelling sweat and come and the musk of their bodies.

Her bonded mates. A swift strong current of joy ran through her at the thought. Bonded, wanted, owned… never alone again. Nothing could tear them apart from each other now. Her bond with Bucky had never been broken, that seemed clear. Perhaps, if Natasha were a little less heat-drunk, she might have been angry, or confused… she’d dreamed this for so long; how had she not known? How had they not known, before now?

It hardly mattered here. Apparently her biology had an eloquence all its own. She was safe…

At last it was over; she felt Bucky soften and slip out of her, her body too loose to keep him in her, and a few moments later Steve did too. Oh, oh, now she ached, groaning softly, and unsteady hands helped her lie down between them, curled up with her back to Bucky’s side, facing Steve. Long silent minutes passed, their breathing loud in her ears now. Steve was still flushed, his eyes very wide, dark circles under them; Natasha’s fingers trembled when she touched his face.

He took her hand in his and kissed it. “You should try and sleep.”

“More than once?” she whispered.

“We’ll soon see.”

“Steve?”

He bit his lip. “I love you.”

Natasha drew a soft little breath. Goosebumps, she had goosebumps, like a teenage girl being smiled at by her crush. “Kiss me.”

He laughed, and he kissed her, sweet at first and slow; then a little nip at her bottom lip, and his hot tongue in her mouth, and all the little tricks that Bucky had always used on her when they kissed, suckling her tongue, her lower lip, teasing her with short, fierce little kisses and then coming back for deeper ones. Natasha clutched at his arm and parted her mouth eagerly, sighing – new, all new, and all hers; so much to explore and learn and discover about each other. At last he pulled back, put his fingers on her lips; behind her, Bucky was breathing deep and even.

“I’m gonna get you some water.”

“I’m fine,” Natasha said softly.

“I did the reading, remember.”

She laughed helplessly, biting her lip; Steve pushed himself up and swung his legs off the bed, grimacing as he stood, one hand on the headboard. Oh, look at that: the ripple of muscle under his skin, the strong thighs and the perfect ass, the Adonis belt and the washboard abs and that ridiculous shoulder-to-waist ratio. She wanted to lay him down and kiss his scars, hear the stories that belonged to all the ones from the war, the ones she didn’t recognise. Natasha shivered, leaned up on one elbow. Distantly desire stirred, an ache still faint but warm. Steve was a little unsteady on his feet, but he shot her a grin as he moved away from the bed, a flush on his cheekbones when he saw her looking; for a moment he paused there and let her ogle him, his lovely deft hands still by his sides.

“Happy with your purchase?” He smiled at her, faint and crooked.

Natasha’s throat was too tight for her to speak. She nodded, smiling a bit, and then Steve did something she’d never thought she’d see him do, and kissed his fingertips at her.

He was still wobbly on his way out of the room, and Natasha squirmed around to watch him; perhaps it was that movement that woke Bucky out of his doze.

“Mmmmm? Tasha?”

“Here,” she said, still keeping her voice low. Pale blue eyes blinked at her; then his face broke into a smile she hadn’t seen him wear in ten straight years.

“My Natalia.” He reached for her, and she snuggled against his side, thrilling to his hot skin against hers; no, it wasn’t over yet, arousal was building slowly in her belly again, between her legs. Natasha ran her hand down his chest, rubbing through dark, curling chest hair he hadn’t had ten years ago, tracing the lines of his muscles, finding his scars and caressing them. Further down, past his belly button and his happy trail; she twined a curl of damp, sticky pubic hair around her finger, and watched his cock stir with renewed interest. His arm tightened around her.

“Not done?”

“Not yet.” Natasha turned her head and kissed his chest, the curve of his pectoral, the flat nipple. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Looking at you every day and feeling you so far away, it killed me.”

She raised her head. There was stubble on his cheeks, very dark against his skin in this light, and his mouth was soft, quiescent.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I really didn’t know.”

“I know that. We both do.” He gathered her filthy hair into a ponytail and tugged on it gently; she poked him in the ribs, laughing; she had forgotten how he used to play with it. “What did you do with Steve?”

“He went to fetch us water. There’s a crate of bottles in the kitchen…” But that just made her remember that this was her apartment, and she’d locked and bolted and security-chained herself in here very thoroughly indeed. “What did you do to my front door?”

Bucky grinned. “Nothing replacing it won’t fix.”

“Breaking and entering,” Natasha said. In the back of her mind arose a thought: _because they were so desperate to get to you_ , and oh, _my_. “Destruction of property.”

His eyes narrowed; something hot and possessive came into his face and voice. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten, ma’am, but _legally_ , everything you own belongs to us.”

_You_ belong to us. Of course, it went the other way just as much, but that wasn’t the aspect that Natasha’s heat-fogged brain found irresistibly sexy. Bucky felt it when she shuddered, and he tugged her hair again and laughed.

“Eager little kitten. Don’t worry, I have plans for you.”

“Doesn’t that make him sound like a supervillain,” Steve said dryly from the doorway. He’d found the crate, and by the look of him washed up a little; atop the bottles there balanced a bowl with a damp washcloth inside. “Here. Drink all of that…”

Natasha accepted the bottle gratefully and gulped the water down; it slid smooth and cool down her sore throat, beautiful. Steve passed Bucky one as well, one eyebrow crooked.

“What sort of plans?”

“Oh,” Bucky said, theatrically vague. “Eat her out, make her beg, knot her again; you know.”

The flush cascaded over Steve’s face and even spread to his chest; Natasha would have been charmed if she weren’t so turned on herself. The washcloth was cold on her overheated skin, and she twisted away from it in surprise, but Bucky caught a hold of her, and Steve stroked it over her thighs and belly, cleaning the worst of the mess away. God, being held down and – and petted like this was worse than being held down and fucked; she was breathing quick, and she spread her legs for them as eagerly as Bucky could want. Steve tossed the washcloth away and ran his hands up her thighs, blue eyes wicked.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Yeah?”

“You promised me something, in the car on the way down.”

“I –” said Bucky, and then he started to laugh. “Yeah I did.”

“I think I’m gonna enjoy this,” Steve said lazily, and bent to kiss Natasha’s inner thigh.

+++

They were kissing; it was the first time since this had started that they had kissed. The wet noise of their mouths sliding together, the little groans Steve made, rumbling in his chest; Natasha, her eyes fallen closed, her body humming with orgasm, felt the slide of their skin against hers as they moved, touched each other, touched her, repositioned her just where they wanted her: on her back, it seemed, on Steve’s chest, her legs spread over his thighs in invitation. They did all the work; it was effort enough to breathe. There was nothing left of Natasha but want and exhaustion… it shouldn’t be possible to be this tired and to have come so many times but to still need more. Bucky’s mouth was as clever and as talented as Natasha remembered, and Steve was a fast learner with a lot of incentive to get it right; she thought they had held her down for hours, trading her off, making her come over and over with mouths and fingers, and finally fucking her again while she cried and begged to be knotted and was wound up to a shattering orgasm that left her conscious mind floating somewhere outside of her body…

She was deliciously sore, and being exhibited like this made part of her want to hide herself, pull away: no trained operative should take pleasure in this distasteful necessity, should offer herself up like this, should _want_ , as well as endure… But she _did_ want, and what was more, Bucky and Steve took as much pleasure from this as they were giving her, which wound Natasha even higher. She was pleasing them, still, all these hours later. She was doing something good, something right… She spread her legs and lay relaxed and shivered and moaned when both of them touched her cunt at the same time, when hot thick fingers slid along her slit, dipped inside her, playing with their own come… She was a mess, but she was a mess they couldn’t stop caressing, teasing her with gentle touches as she writhed, her blood pounding in her body, her face hot, her cunt clenching wet and needy, her clit swollen, shivers of pleasure taking her when someone stroked circles over the root of it…

“Open your eyes, Natalia,” Bucky said to her. “Open your eyes. Want you here for this, want you to see…”

“We’ve got you.” Steve’s hands on her stomach, then cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples. “We’ve got you, come on, gonna make you feel so good, give you everything you want.”

“You do. You have…” What more was there she could want but her Soldier safe, his name in her keeping, and Steve himself? She was theirs, she always had been… hands touched her thighs, tilted her hips just so, opened her legs yet further. Natasha stared, avid, at Bucky kneeling over her, his pupils blown, his hard cock wet and red, his chest and neck a mess of hickeys and scratches, marks of possession that overlaid his scars.

When he saw her eyes were open he licked his lips and smiled. “Keep you here forever if I could. Do this every damn day… it’s been hours and you’re still so wet for it, like you can’t stand not to have us in you, and look at you, just look at you, so damn greedy… look how much you love it.”

Oh. _Oh_. Steve was playing with her tits again, pulling at her aching nipples, stroking the sensitive underside of her breasts, and Bucky’s wet fingers stroked slick inside her and played with her ass and stretched her again and teased for drawn-out silent hours, his flushed face rapt, his left hand heavy on her thigh, watching her asshole clench around his fingers, watching her slick slide down her slit as Steve teased her: it was torture, and she never wanted it to end, except to have them in her.

“You tightened up again so quick,” he murmured.

Natasha shuddered, half-pride, half-embarrassment. “Please,” she managed at last, mouth as dry as a desert, croaking the word. Her hands, what was she even doing with her hands; she clutched, limply, at Steve’s forearms. “Please, please,” but Steve only kissed the side of her face, her jaw, the sensitive spot below her ear that, apparently, always got to her; rolled her nipples gently. “Shhhh… you’re ours, love, only ever ours, entirely, and you’re gonna take whatever we give you, everything we give you, you know you are. So good for us, so fucking good, sweet as sugar darling, so sensitive to everything, everything we want. Gonna give you everything you need…”

Every loving word was going straight to her cunt; unbearable. They moved her so Steve’s cock rubbed between her legs, hot and wet; she wanted to beg, to grind against him, to have him inside her, but she would, of course she would; when Bucky wrapped wet hands around Steve’s cock and stroked him Natasha felt Steve’s shudder in her own body, the roll of his hips and his helpless moans.

“Don’t fuck about,” Steve said, voice gone harsh. He dropped his hands from Natasha’s breasts to touch Bucky’s fingers, but Bucky batted them away.

“I will if I want to. You can last, can’t you sweetheart, lost count of how many times you’ve come today, don’t tell me you’re desperate.” He was grinning, wicked, the muscles in his right arm moving as he teased Steve, the plates of his left shifting smoothly. “Go on, play with Tasha’s pretty tits some more. Love having you spread out for me like this, all on display for me to take, any which way I want.”

Steve’s laugh stuttered, interrupted by moans. He cupped her breasts again and Natasha bit her lips. “Yes, go on. Yours, you know that.” He planted his feet on the mattress, and she felt the tension in the strong thighs underneath her own; they moved her up his chest, his cock no longer trapped beneath her, and she lay limp and let them, shameless. Then the head of Steve’s cock at her anus, and she shook.

“Natalia,” said Bucky softly. “Are you OK? Answer me, kitten.”

“Not if you keep teasing,” she gritted out. “Please, please, I want you, I need you to knot me again, it hurts,” and there, oh Christ, oh god. Steve was deliciously big, stretching her wide and pushing the breath out of her body as they lowered her slowly onto his cock, and she felt again the slight burn and the fullness that was about to get even better – this was incredible, doing it this way, being spread out atop him like this, pinned, exposed, displayed, like a butterfly tacked to a display case: the image was deeply un-sexy, but that was what made it so fucking hot, the thought that she was staked out carelessly for them to use, again, still.

Bucky was kissing her face, and she realised she was crying with it, her nails digging into Steve’s forearms; her thighs were shaking and her hips were twitching with anticipation, with desire. This, this, being trapped between them, being the centre of their attention, all their focus and intelligence and cleverness on her, having them both at once, both her loves, buried so deep in her body she stopped knowing where the lines of demarcation between the three of them even were… the tip of Bucky’s cock was at her cunt, just a brush against her, Steve was inside her to the hilt now, trembling, and then – she couldn’t help the noise she made, guttural with delight, and Bucky’s face above hers was blown open with desire.

“God,” he said. “God, Steve, I can feel you through her.”

“I know,” Steve said. “I know, oh god… Tasha…”

Some part of her that was not quite overwhelmed by sensation and base lust was smug. Her bonded mates, ecstatic and overwhelmed, because of her.

“Move,” she said, and didn’t even recognise her voice as her own. “Move, please, now, come on, fuck me, fuck me –”

Slow at first, careful, gentle, till they found each other, moving in sync, taking her apart. Natasha was making noises she hadn’t even known she could make, torn out of her chest, choked-up moans and strangled cries that must sound pained… compared to this the first time they had knotted her was nothing. Bucky was leaning over her, over them, his hot skin wet with sweat against her own, kissing her breasts, her mouth, open-mouthed brushes of his lips, panting, shaking; underneath her Steve’s breath kept stuttering to a halt and then starting again when he remembered he needed to breathe, all three of them were shaking, this was too good, too impossibly good to last…

But it did, somehow, improbably. Desire wound tight hot coils inside her, her thighs were tense and shaking, she was so full she couldn’t breathe for it, no room for any sensation but the drag and push of their cocks in her. Dizzy, her hands came up to catch on hipbones, hot wet skin, the deep rhythmic movement in time with the thrusts that were jolting her mind into pieces. She was moving easily across Steve’s chest, felt his pecs against her back, the scrape of his nipples, the faint scratch of his chest hair. His damn hands were all-fucking-over, her tits, her hips, her shaking thighs, her arms and flanks and the sides of her ass, he was moaning about as much as she was, little gasps that sounded like surprise whenever he thrust in, whenever he felt her body open for him, felt Bucky move with him, with her.

“Made for this, kitten, so fucking beautiful.” Bucky’ voice was shaking, his hot face hidden against her shoulder, open-mouthed kisses and gusts of breath over her skin. “Time I didn’t think I’d ever fucking see you again and look, just look –”

She clenched her fingers around his hips, watched Steve grip his sides tight. “Yours,” she said, delirious. “Always been yours.” So much strength under her hands, so much grace and kindness and love. “Always, oh god, fuck, Steve –”

“Never,” Steve said, “never be apart again, god, god, you make me whole, Nat, you always have, I’ve needed you so long –” His thighs were shaking, his voice wrecked, the quick blind movements of his hands told Natasha he was nearly there, the way Bucky’ shoulders shook spoke to the closeness of his own orgasm, it frightened her that already she knew them this well, that she could read so much into their looks and gestures, into the tiniest curve of their mouths or the smallest movement: these two men who were both, in their own ways, so intensely private – these two men who both belonged to her. Everything they had been put through, everything they had lost: and she was the one they wanted, the one they gave themselves to, the one who knew them inside out and backwards, who would know their touch blindfolded, pick out their breathing in a crowded room...

“Yes,” she said, wildly happy, forcing trembling legs to obey her, to wrap tight and possessive around Bucky’ body, turning her head to kiss whatever part of Steve she could reach, dug a hand into Bucky’ ass and the other into Steve’s hip, “yes, god, yes, come inside me, knot me, fill me up, come on, want it, want it, knot me, please –”

Oh god. So full, again, so stretched, helpless now, holding them inside her. She was so close, so fucking close, tightrope-strung and trembling violently, they were kissing over her shoulder, Steve’s cries muffled by Bucky’ mouth, the weight of Bucky pressing her into Steve’s chest, Steve’s stubble scraping her temple when he kissed the side of her face, breathing shaky; hands on her skin, god she was soaked, she was a mess, she was sore and stretched wide and – and oh fuck, _fuck_ , oh yes there there –

 

“Natasha.”

White light was fading around the edges of her vision; the voice was deep and warm and loving.

“Natasha.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey.” Steve kissed her temple gently. “You still in there?” He and Bucky were both stroking her skin, soothing her as aftershocks pulled through her body; she couldn’t move, and she was so, so full.

“Ohhhh.” All her mind was blank, her sense of self in pieces. Steve’s skin was hot and wet with sweat underneath her, Bucky trying to keep his weight off her. She blinked; her eyes were stinging with sweat. “Did I black out?”

“A little.” Bucky cupped her face in his palm. He sounded more amazed than smug.

“Oh,” she said again, eyes closing. “Oh my god.”

Neither of them said anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

Natasha closed her eyes again, utterly wrung out; she must have fallen asleep very quickly, still sprawled across Steve’s chest with both their knots inside her – when her sleep grew fitful and she woke she was trembling and needy, empty, empty; they had grown soft while she slept and slipped out of her. She whined and shifted, protesting, wanting, and sank back into sleep with fingers on her clit, a hard cock inside her. They traded her off as though it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world…

Maybe it was now. She knew nothing really about three-way bonds. Half-asleep she would stir and remember she was trapped between them, find hands on her, turn her head and be kissed into stillness while they moved her between them; then the sweet sore ache of being filled again, played with, used, and knowing that she could doze a little longer, content.

Every hour or so; then, every couple hours; slowly the night dragged on. Or was it morning already? She had lost track of time at some point during yesterday’s agony, before they had found her, and had no idea how long it had been…

Once she woke up gasping to another wet washcloth on her skin, wiping her sticky thighs, her ass, the small of her back; she was lying on Steve’s chest again, cradled safe against him, and groaned softly as Bucky cleaned her. He pressed kisses along her shoulders, against the sore marks of his teeth and Steve’s.

“Shh. It’s all right. It’s nearly over, kitten, you’ve been so brave, so good for us.”

Natasha squirmed, her hands tight on Steve’s sides, her hips rolling against his thigh. “I don’t – I still want –”

“All right,” Bucky murmured. “All right.” He stroked her back with firm touches, then, more gently, her ass. Natasha cried out into his shoulder, but for the first time since they had found her it was as much pain as lust, aching where they had taken her, her body sore all over. In spite of this, she knew she was wet again…

“Fingers?” Steve said.

“Yeah.” Together they laid her in the pillows; Steve bent over her and kissed her, Natasha’s hands limp and tired on his body. Something was off…

“Different room?” she murmured as Bucky took her in his arms, one around her shoulders, the other hand between her legs. “Oh, oh yes. Stay there, stay there always.” Two fingers tucked deep inside her, the heel of his hand against her clit.

“We’ll have to burn that other mattress,” he said, and kissed her temple.

“Hmm.”

“Hey. Stop thinking.” Steve settled against her other side, his leg thrown over one of hers. Natasha sighed happily when he pinned her wrists above her head, and even more happily when his hot mouth ghosted over her left breast, licked and suckled at her sensitive nipple. “Get some more sleep, OK?”

“Mm. But you’re playing with me.” She pouted.

Bucky crooked his fingers inside her, laughing. Steve bit at her nipple lightly. “ _Now_ she notices!”

“An hour ago you were so out of it you didn’t even wake up when I had you,” Bucky said in her ear.

Natasha shuddered, her body arching into fingers and mouth, pushing involuntarily at Steve’s grip around her wrists. “I dreamed –”

“I hope so,” said Steve. “You came, anyway, if how you twisted about is any measure… never tasted anything like how you taste when you come.”

“I’m sure it’s just all omega biology,” Natasha murmured. Already she was sliding back into sleep, lulled and comforted by those hot touches; strange how desire no longer woke but soothed her, running low and heavy through her body, pulling her under.

“Mm. That I wouldn’t know.”

She snorted. Bucky said softly, “Shh, kitten, sleep…” and slowly, settling under their bodies, she did.

+++

It was definitely daytime. The light was bright behind the drapes, the room still dim but golden with sunshine. Natasha stirred, exhausted. Her body ached all over, she was starving, her tongue was swollen in her dry mouth and her throat was sore, and the soreness in her cunt and ass suggested she would never walk straight again.

In spite of this, she was suffused with a sense of well-being so total it was a little frightening. She felt as if the whole world had been swapped out overnight – everything wiped away and replaced with something identical but beautiful. And best of all, her mind was completely clear; she had herself back, and that was everything. The soft bedding stroked her skin, and – and someone was kissing. That little moan, and the wet noises…

Unmoving, she opened her eyes. They were on the far side of the bed, an arm’s length of space between her and them; Bucky was on his back in the pillows, Steve sprawled atop him, and they were making out like teenagers. Natasha bit her lip. As she watched Bucky’s hands were drifting down Steve’s broad back, cupping his hips; Steve sighed and drove down against him, making Bucky shudder and break the kiss, laughing quietly.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I’m sore too.” Steve kissed the corner of Bucky’s mouth, rubbed a hand over his shoulder. “Nice, this, though.”

“Being properly turned on by dick again? Yes it is.”

Natasha clenched her fist under the covers, nails biting deeply into her palm.

“Different,” Steve said. They kept kissing, in this practiced easy way, as if whispered conversations in the middle of make-out sessions with a sleeping omega beside them in the bed were how they spent all their mornings. It was either very sweet or rather funny.

“Everything’s clearer now,” Bucky agreed. “Better, in fact…”

“Definitely.” Steve sighed happily. “I can’t wait to be with Nat like this.”

She closed her eyes, shivering. But Bucky sniggered, and she –

“You’ll have to. After the last two days she’ll be sore for weeks, I guess. Now if she lets us look after her…”

“Here’s to hoping.”

Bucky put his hand in Steve’s hair, stroking and caressing, kissed him again. “She used to have this trick – I’d be inside her, and she would run her hands down my back and flex them against my ass. Drove me _crazy_.”

“I must have done that to you a thousand times,” said Steve, amused.

“Your hands are bigger, it’s different.” That look, all teasing and heat…

“You’re ridiculous,” Steve told him, grinning, naked adoration in the curve of his smile. At last Natasha broke; she yawned and pushed the covers back, reaching for them.

They both turned to her at the exact same second.

“Morning,” Bucky said.

“Hey.” Steve smiled at her.

“Morning,” Natasha croaked.

“Have some water – get off, you lug.” Bucky shoved Steve over, laughing, and reached for the bottle on the bedside table; Natasha pulled herself into a sitting position and sipped at it gladly. Steve was stroking her legs through the covers.

“You need to drink a lot today,” he said, “and eat, and probably sleep more too.”

“All right, mom,” Natasha said, amused.

“Hey, this isn’t funny,” Bucky said gently. “You need to look after yourself.”

Natasha paused with the bottle at her lips; she glanced from Bucky to Steve and back thoughtfully.

“And if I don’t you’ll do it for me?”

A rush of anger swamped her so suddenly it made her dizzy, and Steve’s face went thunderous.

“We’re your bonded, that’s our jobs.”

“Oh _are_ you,” Natasha said. There was a hot thrill in her veins – not lust, just the usual adrenaline junkie excitement; she was playing with fire here and she _loved_ it. “Because my brain scans –”

“You’ve been on those suppressants so long the scans are irrelevant,” Bucky said harshly.

“That’s not what a court will say.”

“Where the _fuck_ does a court come into this,” Steve snarled. “You’re _ours_ , and if you didn’t want that you should have packed your crap and left us months ago. There’s no such thing as a one-sided bond, _kitten_.”

That deliberate, calculated use of the possessive, vaguely humiliating nickname they had both called her during her heat riled her up for real; Natasha flung the empty plastic bottle aside and leaned up, snarling right back.

“You son of a bitch, you had _no right_ , either of you, not a damn word did I say that would make anyone think –”

Bucky’s hand on her naked back silenced her as if she’d been slapped, her eyes blown wide at the heat of it and the lovely rightness of his touch on her skin. Admiration and amusement and want ran through her, and she shook her head to clear it.

“You can feel that, can’t you?” Bucky said softly. “How right it is when I touch you. How fucking hot I find it when you get mad, and how much I love you…”

“Don’t –” Natasha said, breathless. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“You sure about that?”

She laughed in spite of herself, and then she reached for Steve, taking his big hands in hers and kissing them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah you did. And you had every right to.” He switched his grip and kissed her palms in answer.

“No,” Natasha said. “I’m terrified of both of you and I wanted to see what you’d do if I pushed you.”

Silence then. They were looking at each other. At last Bucky said, “Which was?”

Natasha made a strangled, choked little noise. “Exactly what I knew you would. Steve got pissed off because how dare I act like I’m not his possession, and you got all reasonable because you know me inside out,” and gasped angrily: she would not cry, she would _not_. She’d spent days being unable to control herself, she would get this much self-possession back or die trying.

She didn’t cry. It was a close thing. Neither Steve nor Bucky moved. At last she pressed the heels of her hands against her hot eyes and groaned.

“The suppressants –”

“Well, they suppressed,” said Bucky.

Natasha gave him a look. “You’re terrible.” But she couldn’t stop a reluctant smile.

“Let Helen check you over again when we get back,” Steve said quietly. “Please?”

“I will. I promise I will.” Natasha sighed. “Bonded,” she said.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” Steve grinned.

Natasha wrapped her arms around her knees and looked away, laughing a little. “I didn’t say that.”

“No.” He took hold of her hands to kiss them again.

“You’re an asshole,” Natasha said gently, “and I cannot _begin_ to tell you how much Germany pissed me off.”

Steve’s face brightened. “Please,” he said. “Please let’s fight about that. I’ve been waiting for you to yell at me for months.”

She pulled her hands free and thumped his shoulder, understanding at once what he meant: honesty between them at all costs, even if it was ugly… “And you,” turning a glare on Bucky; he stroked her hair out of her face and cupped her neck in his hand.

“You’ve been stonewalling me right back. I thought you didn’t remember. It made me sick when you joked about Odessa.”

“I thought _you_ didn’t remember. What was I supposed to do, cry all over you?” Natasha laughed at him.

“Well if you had had maybe we would have sorted this out sooner! But I thought – I didn’t have a right to push you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you’re so careful it makes me want to scream. You have to promise me not to do that anymore. I know it’s been a long time, but dammit, we’re still _partners_. I mean, you shot Steve in the stomach, but that looks to me like it’s working out.”

Steve snorted. Bucky pulled her close and kissed her forehead gently. “And this will too. All right, I’ll promise. I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll yell at you just as much as him.” He grinned.

“Don’t scoff,” Natasha said softly.

“No. OK.” Bucky touched her face with gentle fingers. He glanced over at Steve thoughtfully. “Neither of us ever wanted to hurt you...”

“No, never again.”

Natasha sighed. “The only thing that was _hurting_ me was us being apart…”

Bucky nudged her face up to his and kissed her, laugh-lines deep around his eyes; first proper, deliberate kiss in more than a decade. Natasha squeezed Steve’s hands tight and sighed.

“Come here. We’ll run you a bath, make you breakfast…”

“Coddle me.” She was dubious. What if she didn’t _like_ being coddled?

“You’re just going to have to lump it, kitten.”

“That nickname,” Natasha said firmly, “is banned.”

+++

Natasha liked being coddled. She liked it a _lot_. The sweet muzzy exhaustion of afterwards: would every heat be like this? Her upstairs brain had vague, half-formed objections to being treasured and cosseted like a precious pet. Her omega instincts bypassed her higher brain functions entirely, apparently still responding to her bonded alphas on a level as primal as heat itself, and Natasha, metaphorically speaking, rolled over, exposed her throat submissively, and purred.

More water; a little food; then the bath, a long hour, silent more often than not, in the tub, the bathroom sauna-like with steam off the water, the rich, pleasantly cloying smell of the bubble bath that Natasha liked best. She lay against Bucky’s chest and put her legs over Steve’s and trusted them not to let her drown if she fell asleep, watching the light in Steve’s face, the blissed-out smile, the fine pale eyelashes, the lines of his arm against the edge of the tub. Slowly, very slowly, as her body relaxed, as she calmed, she began to sense a warm little tangle of emotions in the back of her mind that were not her own…

At last she sighed, blissful. “Thank you for this.”

“Oh!” She felt the laugh run through Bucky’s body, watched the slow smile on Steve’s face. “I promise you, it was our pleasure.”

“It was certainly mine.” Natasha laughed suddenly. “I really should have known. When Helen said that a friend of hers had used a pro to help her through it the very idea made me want to throw up. There was only you…” And then, easily, so very very easily, words rose to her lips that she should, perhaps, have used to them months ago, years, if she’d only known how: “I love you,” she said quietly, tracing the rills and plates of Bucky’s arm with her fingertips. “I love you.” The words tasted bright and brand new in her mouth. Had she ever said them before? Never like this. Never even to Bucky…

Bucky kissed her shoulder, her skull behind her ear. Steve reached out, fingers wrinkled with the hot water, and touched her face, wordless. The water rippled when he shifted: he drew her hand out of the bubbles and kissed her palm. Bucky rested his face against her shoulder, brush of his lips across her skin too soft to call a kiss.

Natasha was still unsteady when they climbed out, limp with exhaustion, and she slid into bed in the second bedroom with a sigh. The bed in here was smaller, the windows too, and as the sunny afternoon faded into a rainy, cool night they dozed, pressed close together, or traded sweet slow kisses, murmured endearments. Natasha kept drifting off, though she hated to; hated to miss a minute of their company, their touch. Steve was yawning, adorably sleepy, and Bucky’ slow breathing was hypnotic, comforting; watching his long eyelashes flutter as he slid in and out of a doze was mesmerising.

Listen to her, waxing rhapsodic about eyelashes. God she was lost – totally, irrevocably lost.

It was glorious.

+++

Two days later, Helen said, “It’s there. I want you to look after yourself; I still don’t much like the look of it, you’re not at normal yet. But I can see the bond now. The hormone levels, the activity in your right frontal lobe look right.”

“Is it enough?” Natasha asked. “For the tattoos?”

Helen said, “Yes, I think so.”

+++

“I’m going to flaunt them,” she said in the courthouse as the marks took shape under her skin. “I want you to know that. I’m never wearing sleeves again.” No more hiding. She could feel them in her mind now, her own contentment reflected back at her twice over. Steve was smug, which was adorable. Bucky was quietly, completely at peace.

“That’s fine,” Steve said, smiling.

“More than fine,” Bucky said.

+++

“ _Bonded_?” Clint and Laura and Cooper and even Lila all said near simultaneously.

“Whas bonded?” Nate demanded, tugging at Natasha’s hair.

“Uh, sort of like married,” she said, bouncing him on her hip till he giggled.

“Did you have to wear one of those big puffy dresses like Lila’s Barbies have got?” Cooper said, pulling his face.

“Was it in a huge church like on TV? Why didn’t we get invited?” Lila demanded.

“It wasn’t in a church,” Natasha said, “you weren’t invited because there wasn’t time for a party, and there were no dresses.” At all. Heh.

“Hmmph,” said Lila.

“But I could throw a party now,” Natasha said wickedly.

Lila brightened up at once. “With party hats?”

“And bunting,” Natasha promised.

“And balloons?”

“And balloons.”

“If he’ll show up to one of Lila’s parties and not grumble I’d say you’ve hit the jackpot,” said Laura, visibly repressing her curiosity.

Natasha grinned. “They haven’t grumbled yet.”

“Come _on_ , put us out of our misery,” Clint groaned.

Natasha started laughing. “It’s Bucky and Steve.”

“ _Both_ –” Laura whooped in surprise.

“Laura,” Natasha said, suddenly very serious, “Laura I’ve never been so happy,” and then she had to sit down in the nearest chair because she was a little afraid that her legs would give out and she would drop Nate if she didn’t.

“Drama queen,” said Clint, and came around the table to hug her.

 

 

 


End file.
